Apple next week is likely to announce that all Mac owners who run the latest version of the OS X operating system, Lion, will also receive at least some of the services from iCloud for free, sources have told AppleInsider.

Apple uncharacteristically preannounced iCloud in a press released issued on Tuesday, revealing that Chief Executive Steve Jobs will introduce the product alongside Mac OS X 10.7 and iOS 5 at the keynote to kick off the Worldwide Developers Conference next week. The company may have been willing to let the cat out of the bag early because of a plethora of surprises it has planned for next week.

People familiar with Apple's plans indicated to AppleInsider that at least one of those secrets is expected to be that at least some of the services included in iCloud will be offered for free to Mac users who make the upgrade to Lion. iCloud is expected to replace the company's existing MobileMe service, which offers e-mail and remote file storage, along with syncing of bookmarks, contacts and calendar events, at a price tag of $99 per year.

That price tag may remain for users who do not make the upgrade to Lion, or for Windows users. But it is expected that the cloud services will become free to Mac users who run the latest version of Mac OS X.

But one important component of iCloud is unlikely to be be free: music streaming. While those people familiar with Apple's plans offered no indication regarding the music streaming service, the licensing agreements that Apple has worked to secure carry a price tag that is expected to be passed on to users in some form.

It is, however, possible that Apple could offer some sort of an introductory or trial period for its music streaming service. It was CNet that reported in April that Apple's iCloud could be free at first, but that the company eventually plans to charge customers for hosting content on its servers.

Free access to iCloud may not be the only carrot that Apple dangles in front of users to incentivize upgrades to Lion. A separate source that reached out to AppleInsider also indicated it's possible that the company could be planning a one-two punch, offering not only iCloud, but also a low sale price for Lion.

This source, who has an unproven track record, claims that Apple higher-ups were pushing for an aggressive price point on Lion -- an approach the company already employed with great success when Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard launched in late 2009.

Snow Leopard debuted with a $29 price tag, and that strategy resulted in sales that doubled the previous record-setting launch of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

It's possible that the lower price could also be tied to purchasing Lion through the Mac App Store. The company already does this by selling its professional photography software, Aperture, for $79.99 in the App Store -- a price $120 lower than the $199.99 Apple charges for a boxed copy of Aperture 3, and even $20 less than the $99 Aperture 3 Upgrade.

Whether Apple will choose to go with the same sub-$30 pricing of Snow Leopard when Lion goes on sale is unknown. But software now plays a very small part in Apple's bottom line, and the company is said to be interested in ensuring that users quickly upgrade to the latest version of Mac OS X, through incentives and low barriers to entry.

Apple executives are said to have so much confidence in Lion, they believe the new operating system will help the company carve away even more market share from traditional Windows PCs. The idea is near-ubiquitous adoption of Lion on Macs will go a long way in promoting the Mac platform and further expand Apple's market penetration.

Lion may also help PC switchers make the jump to the Mac with a new "mentor" tool. One person with knowledge of the company's plans said this service aims to help people set up their new system, including external devices like printers and routers. The source expressed uncertainty about the "mentor" tool, suggesting it may not make the final cut.

Apple is also said to be planning an aggressive marketing push for Lion when it debuts later this year. In the weeks before Lion goes on sale, the company is expected to showcase several applications available on the Mac App Store to spotlight some of the biggest features of Lion.

As long as they make it somewhat easy to backup the OS to a flash drive (to reinstall it as needed), then there's little reason to buy a physical copy. Ads which actually show off Lion's apps and features, especially as it now resembles iOS, should see Mac sales dare-I-say "surge in the face of slowing PC growth".

As an aside, while the app store is good for downloading apps on the Mac, they need to sort out the uninstallation side. Deleting apps via Launchpad still leaves files behind.

As long as they make it somewhat easy to backup the OS to a flash drive (to reinstall it as needed), then there's little reason to buy a physical copy. Ads which actually show off Lion's apps and features, especially as it now resembles iOS, should see Mac sales dare-I-say "surge in the face of slowing PC growth".

As an aside, while the app store is good for downloading apps on the Mac, they need to sort out the uninstallation side. Deleting apps via Launchbar still leaves files behind.

Given that your installation disk is kind of a failsafe, one could argue that you shouldn't have to go through a process - that may or may not work in each case - to create the failsafe. Or is that a bit nuclear-power-station paranoid?

Many of the most important software concepts were invented in the 70s and forgotten in the 80s.

So Apple thinks Lion is great and they are going to push said OS release with marketing. What a shocker.

The real news here is that iCloud, aka Mobile me 2.0 will not be free. This is not good. "iClould is free if you buy this other thing from us". I.E. it's not free. I have a sinking feeling. I told Jobs to make Mobile me free and use it to sell Macs and iOS products as a selling point, I hope he got the message. He sure didn't get the message with Safari extensions. Chrome extensions implementation embarrasses Safari.

After the current release of iWork for iPhone/iTouch, I expect that there will be a cloud version for this productivity suite. This will enable you to seamlessly continue working on a document on another device at the same point you left your document on another device - without copying, producing numerous versions on different devices that then become difficult to track. This would be extremely awesome and also highly interesting for business. OK - I would love such a feature as I constantly struggle with different versions of a document on different devices.

So Apple thinks Lion is great and they are going to push said OS release with marketing. What a shocker.

The real news here is that iCloud, aka Mobile me 2.0 will not be free. This is not good. "iClould is free if you buy this other thing from us". I.E. it's not free. I have a sinking feeling. I told Jobs to make Mobile me free and use it to sell Macs and iOS products as a selling point, I hope he got the message. He sure didn't get the message with Safari extensions. Chrome extensions implementation embarrasses Safari.

I swear Ireland. If you ever post one thing positive I will have a heart attack and die.

Everything else about the new MobileMe/iCloud? Paid. Plain and simple.

Lion, though, I'd see $50-$80. Somewhere around there.

My MobileMe auto renewed today and my wife's will in 2 weeks. At $99 each as there's no longer a boxed version to buy at Amazon for $70. So, $200 and in a few weeks they will be giving it away free? After 5 years of buying 2 subscriptions a year I'm going to be pretty annoyed if it's all free and I don't receive a rebate/credit of some sort. Especially as subscribed calendars have cost us seemingly dozens of hours of frustration and aggravation (and missed appointments as well).

People familiar with Apple's plans indicated to AppleInsider that at least one of those secrets is expected to be that at least some of the services included in iCloud will be offered for free to Mac users who make the upgrade to Lion. iCloud is expected to replace the company's existing MobileMe service, which offers e-mail and remote file storage, along with syncing of bookmarks, contacts and calendar events, at a price tag of $99 per year.

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If Lion + iCloud means syncing with the performance and reliability of say Dropbox, then I'm in for both and will happily switch my data upgrade from Dropbox to iCloud and upgrade my 2 macs to Lion.

If it stinks like MobileMe, then I'll invest in a longer barge poll.

Many of the most important software concepts were invented in the 70s and forgotten in the 80s.

So Apple thinks Lion is great and they are going to push said OS release with marketing. What a shocker.

The real news here is that iCloud, aka Mobile me 2.0 will not be free. This is not good. "iClould is free if you buy this other thing from us". I.E. it's not free. I have a sinking feeling. I told Jobs to make Mobile me free and use it to sell Macs and iOS products as a selling point, I hope he got the message. He sure didn't get the message with Safari extensions. Chrome extensions implementation embarrasses Safari.

The thing about free is you can get it elsewhere - I think OK should be free and premium should have a price.

I want to pay for something that works immaculately, like I've come to expect from my Apple stuff, but MobileMe just doesn't.

Many of the most important software concepts were invented in the 70s and forgotten in the 80s.

My MobileMe auto renewed today and my wife's will in 2 weeks. At $99 each as there's no longer a boxed version to buy at Amazon for $70. So, $200 and in a few weeks they will be giving it away free? After 5 years of buying 2 subscriptions a year I'm going to be pretty annoyed if it's all free and I don't receive a rebate/credit of some sort. Especially as subscribed calendars have cost us seemingly dozens of hours of frustration and aggravation (and missed appointments as well).

Given that your installation disk is kind of a failsafe, one could argue that you shouldn't have to go through a process - that may or may not work in each case - to create the failsafe. Or is that a bit nuclear-power-station paranoid?

I suppose, but I've had to do it numerous times -- especially managing the Lion dev preview I've been testing out. With the Macbook Air, I'm thinking Lion may come on a flash drive/ memory stick as opposed to CD.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ireland

So Apple thinks Lion is great and they are going to push said OS release with marketing. What a shocker.

The real news here is that iCloud, aka Mobile me 2.0 will not be free. This is not good. "iClould is free if you buy this other thing from us". I.E. it's not free. I have a sinking feeling. I told Jobs to make Mobile me free and use it to sell Macs and iOS products as a selling point, I hope he got the message. He sure didn't get the message with Safari extensions. Chrome extensions implementation embarrasses Safari.

If iCloud (still hate the name) renders iTunes useless by syncing my music, movies and photos over the air then I'd find that quite valuable and worth paying for. Hopefully it's nothing like MobileMe. And they don't do a large scale roll-out that will inevitably flop (or at least make sure they're better prepared this time).

Safari extensions, for the most part, don't even exist as far as I'm concerned. Much fanfare for what ended up as a non-feature.

One more thing, I have a pro and an air. Does anyone know if I will have to buy two copies?

Or a way of getting it on both without paying twice?

There's absolutely no way we could possibly know this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by justfine

My MobileMe auto renewed today and my wife's will in 2 weeks. At $99 each as there's no longer a boxed version to buy at Amazon for $70. So, $200 and in a few weeks they will be giving it away free? After 5 years of buying 2 subscriptions a year I'm going to be pretty annoyed if it's all free and I don't receive a rebate/credit of some sort. Especially as subscribed calendars have cost us seemingly dozens of hours of frustration and aggravation (and missed appointments as well).

Isn't that what I said? Everything stays paid. I didn't say "they would be giving it away free".

You get to install App Store iPhoto on all 5 iTunes-authorized computers. That bodes well for you. And me.

I wonder if Lion plus iCloud could pull a lot of that non-music authorisation into Lion as a more generic licensing framework that various apps would plug into. So a movie-watching app would have to check in with Lion that it's authorised, ditto iTunes for music (only), and for running apps, etc. It's time for iTunes to get some refactoring treatment, if that's the right term.

Many of the most important software concepts were invented in the 70s and forgotten in the 80s.

Everything you buy in the Mac App Store is installable (and licensed) on all machines attached to the same account.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tundraboy

You get to install App Store iPhoto on all 5 iTunes-authorized computers. That bodes well for you. And me.

I think all App Store content you buy with your iTunes account work any device tied to that account. I think the 5 authorized rule is for the iTunes Store proper (i.e., music, videos, and audiobooks).

That said, an OS via the Mac App Store is a different beast than an app running on an OS. So far we've seen Apple use the Mac App Store to distribute Lion but it was done using a redeem code. If they are going to have the developers use a redeem code it seems possible that they'd have consumers use it, too.

Also, the redeem is not unlike how they have sold .Mac and MobileMe subscription for years. This would allow Apple to sell Lion to 3rd-party retailers who can then sell it to users. Instead of paying $29 for Lion users can pay Amazon $23.99, for example and have a box with the redeem code mailed to them.

PS: Having a redeem code doesn't mean the OS is locked down like Windows. It's a not a license key.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

I don't need iCloud, but I would like the price of Lion to be close to 80 bucks retail, 50 on the Mac App Store.

PRobably more like $80 MAS, $129 Retail (to encourage folks to go app store) and it will include the first year of iCloud for free.

Then after that it will be like $59-69 to renew.

Add a $30-40 surcharge for 'family' plans and hopefully the ability to buy more storage for any member ID as well as link existing Apple IDs to the Cloud ID for all services (so whether I log into XXXX@ISPwhatever.com or XXXX@me/mac.com I get to the same stuff) and auto mapping of existing mac.com, me.com to any new cloud id.

even at that kind of cost a lot of folks will buy it simply because it is Apple.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hal 9000

One thing that wouldn´t help Lion addoption is if Core Solo Macs and/or Core Duo Macs were not supported by Lion.

It's very possible there will be. Because Apple is not required to support older hardware. Especially 4-5 year plus older hardware which is where some of those macs are starting to fall. It would be nice if they did but don't count on it.

As long as they make it somewhat easy to backup the OS to a flash drive (to reinstall it as needed), then there's little reason to buy a physical copy. Ads which actually show off Lion's apps and features, especially as it now resembles iOS, should see Mac sales dare-I-say "surge in the face of slowing PC growth".

As an aside, while the app store is good for downloading apps on the Mac, they need to sort out the uninstallation side. Deleting apps via Launchpad still leaves files behind.

Try out Hazel (http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel.php). Works great at cleaning up all the stray files when you trash an application (among other awesome things). Don't know why Apple hasn't built that into the OS.

My MobileMe auto renewed today and my wife's will in 2 weeks. At $99 each as there's no longer a boxed version to buy at Amazon for $70. So, $200 and in a few weeks they will be giving it away free? After 5 years of buying 2 subscriptions a year I'm going to be pretty annoyed if it's all free and I don't receive a rebate/credit of some sort. Especially as subscribed calendars have cost us seemingly dozens of hours of frustration and aggravation (and missed appointments as well).

Same with me - but if iCloud is free for those buying Lion, maybe Lion will be free for those having a MobileMe subscription?

Am I massively missing something about streaming of music, but I really can't understand why I need it? The fact that I can have my iTunes library on multiple devices means I already have all my music with me wherever I go. I really can't imagine a time I wouldn't have my music with me.

Maybe there is a business out there for a subscription music plan like Netflix is for movies, but I can't see it. I think people are used to owning their music and Apple will have a hard time overcoming that.

As for the pricing of iCloud, it will depend entirely on what it consists of. I've never paid for MobileMe, because Yahoo Mail is good and free. Web calendaring doesn't seem to fit for me, since my iPhone (which is always with me) synchs my Outlook calendar, so I just don't see the value proposition.

Good luck to them though. There has been so much talk about Cloud computing that I wait to be blown away by it - but it's not happened yet......